Golden Temple in Amritsar: The holiest of Sikh shrines

It is the holiest of Sikh shrines, the core of a faith that has survived five centuries of vicissitude but continues to bare its militant face. The Golden Temple in Amritsar - commonly known as "Darbar Sahib" - is a place of complete tranquillity and devotion.

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Raghu Rai

August 27, 2013

ISSUE DATE: October 15, 1982

UPDATED: September 3, 2014 16:31 IST

It is the holiest of Sikh shrines, the core of a faith that has survived five centuries of vicissitude but continues to bare its militant face. The Golden Temple in Amritsar - commonly known as "Darbar Sahib" - with its gilded, jewel-like chambers and cupolas, rising out of a cool blue water tank and, girdled by vast marble terraces, is a place of complete tranquillity and devotion. Its doors are closed to no one; all can seek shelter inside its haloed precincts or sit cross-legged on the floor to eat at its langar or free meal service.

Meticulously maintained for cleanliness, assiduously attended at its daily ritual services, scrupulously secular in its outlook, the foremost of Sikh gurudwaras is more than a symbol of religious faith. It is a symbol of the political aspiration of the Sikhs; more than a place of worship, it is a place for the community to endorse their ideological faith.

Casually-armed Sikhs, equipped with rifles, revolvers or a variety of swords and sabres sanctioned by their religion, can be seen walking around freely or resting inside the main shrine. Public offenders can misuse it by seeking asylum, for the police by convention does not enter it. In the eyes of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple is more than a shrine: it is a sanctuary, an affirmation of the community's sense of identity.

A close up of the Harimandir - the inner sanctum of the Golden Temple rising out of the tank of water

It is not only today that the Golden Temple has been used as a refuge. Just as Sikh leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, charged with inciting lawlessness, has acquired immunity by living in the temple, thousands of Hindu and Muslim families were saved from annihilation by seeking refuge inside its portals during the savagery of the Sikh-Muslim riots that gripped Punjab during Partition. In few religions is a shrine sanctified enough to grant total political asylum, yet constitute the hub of all inter-party and interpersonal politics.

Spartan Code: The Sikh religion advocates that to be a true Khalsa - one of the chosen and chaste race of soldier-saints - the disciple must adopt a spartan code of conduct, abstaining from liquor, tobacco and narcotics; devote himself to a life of prayer and crusade for dharamayuddha - the battle for righteousness.

Sikh extremists who have lately unleashed a wave of hijackings, murders and bomb attacks, who demand a separate state exclusive to their religious community, see themselves as protagonists of such a dharamayuddha - their morchas, voluntary arrests and acts of violence being undertaken in the name of religion.

Yet Sikhism, when it emerged in the late 15th century out of the teachings of Nanak, the first of the ten Sikh gurus, was a reformist movement, pacific and secular in nature and opposed to a hierarchical Hindu society and its caste system.

In a rare photograph, Sikh leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale currently living within the precincts of the Golden Temple, is seen making the ritual perambulation around the sacrcd granth in the Harimandir where housands flock each day to make their obeisance

Today, many of its aspects are riddled with anomaly. Few Sikhs, for example, would like to be reminded that though their religion forbids smoking, Kharak Singh, the son of the great Sikh soldier-monarch Maharaja Ranjit Singh, in fact died of smoking too much opium in the last century.

And last month, when one of the best-known contemporary chroniclers of Sikh history and culture, Khushwant Singh visited the Golden Temple, he was taken aback by Bhindranwale's diatribe against Sikh sharabis (drinkers).

He noted in his column: "I counted the number of Akali netas on the dais who had drunk whisky in my home. When next I meet Darbara Singh (chief minister of Punjab) I will advise him to let Bhindranwale handle the Akalis: he could reduce their membership to less than half."

For all the contradictions inherent in the development of the Sikh religion, its great skill in organisation and community management is best enshrined in the way the Golden Temple is run. Controlled by the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), a body set up by the Sikh Gurudwaras Act of 1925, the temple survives mainly on donations and charities.

Devotees may include an American Sikh (left top) or armed men (right top) but they do not interfere with the meticulous routine of the temple centred around the holy book (below)

Under the Gurudwaras Act, all offerings of money are to be spent on the temple, but the Golden Temple contributes 35 per cent of its income to the SGPC for religious propagation and education.

Devotion: The temple's income and expenditure budget for 1982-83 is Rs 2-4 crore, its takings from sale of prasad alone being Rs 63 lakh. It spends about Rs 20 lakh a year on the langar, feeding up to 5,000 people a day.

A similar sum of money is spent on its 781 employees, who live mostly in rented accommodation in the city. Besides a number of people who work for the temple on nominal salaries, much of the labour required to service the needs of the nearly 50,000 daily visitors is offered free by devotees. For instance, the new langar building which cost Rs 2 crore was built entirely with voluntary labour. Similarly, it is considered a privilege by the faithful to scrub, sweep and clean the place regularly.

Temple priests distribute parsad

The Golden Temple, despite the hordes of followers it attracts daily, the thousands that it feeds and the hundreds that it provides shelter to, is the epitome of serenity and well-ordered efficiency. Entering it through a marbled hall, barefooted visitors are expected to wash their feet and cover their heads before walking along the water tank - the "pool of nectar" from which the city of Amritsar takes its name - to enter the main shrine.

Called Harimandir, the main structure of the Golden Temple rises from the centre of the sacred pool, 150 metres square, approached by a causeway 60 metres long. Bordered with balustrades of fretted marble and giant lamps, the causeway leads directly into the richly gilded splendour of the temple.

Hundreds of artisans, masons and painters, mostly Muslim, were brought in by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the early 18th century to design, restructure and embellish the temple with gold plate; its architectural style is a unique synthesis of Hindu and Muslim traditions, combining Islamic-style domes with elegant Rajput chattris, the interior fabulously decorated in a rich fusion of various ornamental techniques.

On the ground floor of the building is placed the Granth Sahib - the sacred 369-page book which all Sikhs regard as the sole repository of spiritual authority - placed under a gorgeous, embroidered canopy. Visitors are expected to prostrate themselves before the Granth Sahib in obeisance making a donation of money - if only of a few coins - at the same time.

In the temple kitchens food is cooked for hundreds of devotees who sit on the floor to eat

A special coffer is placed before the granth to facilitate these donations. Having made their offerings, visitors then circulate around the building, or sit quietly to listen to the continuous recitation of the granth. On the floor above is the Sheesh Mahal - the hall of mirrors - with intricate mirror inlay adorning the walls and ceiling.

There is a square opening in the centre to permit a clear view of the proceedings below, while every aspect of the temple overlooks the cool waters of the tank, allowing a gentle breeze to circulate through the whole building.

The granth, a compilation of some 6,000 hymns, the teachings of all ten gurus, is in fact considered the embodiment of the gurus and is treated as such. To the chanting of hymns, the granth is brought out in a golden palanquin before dawn each morning from the Akal Takht - the "Throne of the Timeless", a building erected by Hargobind, the sixth guru, presently headed by Giani Kirpal Singh, the chief priest of the Sikhs to the freshly washed Harimandir which it faces.

The recitation of the granth is undertaken by five chosen granthis (readers) appointed by the SGPC after a good deal of schooling. Thrice a day, passages from the granth called hukamnamas are written on blackboards placed at vantage points around the temple for the perusal of devotees; at exactly 10 p.m. the holy book is taken around the four corners of the temple and deposited back at the Akal Takht for the night. The ritual is repeated every day of the year.

Others sit in worship on the temple's marbled terraces

It was Ram Das, the fourth guru who in 1574 came upon the site of the Golden Temple and, believing that its waters had miraculous curative powers, settled by it. Four years later he bought the property, excavated the tank further and erected a shrine at its centre - around the abode of the guru a town began to grow and each successive guru extended the temple.

Although the temple was destroyed many times by invading Mughals, its sanctity never waned; but it was not till 1803 that Maharaja Ranjit Singh began to reconstruct it in its present shape, importing master craftsmen from all over the country to attain his vision of the Temple's gilded splendour.

Standard Rituals: Ritual, which was anathema to the founding father of Sikhism, is very much part of the religion today, evident not only in the day-to-day working of the Golden Temple but in the daily lives of its votaries.

The true Khalsa has five emblems, all beginning with the letter K - kesa (hair) which he must retain unshorn, kangha (comb), kaccha (drawers) worn by soldiers, kirpan (sabre) and kara (bracelet) of steel, normally worn on the right arm.

Crowds of visitors, including a party of foreign tourists in the forefront, jam the gilded passage over the tank to eater the main temple building

Rites of passage are also to be rigorously observed: new-born children are brought to the gurudwara as soon as possible, the granth is opened and the child given a name beginning with the first letter of the first word on the left page.

More important is the ceremony of the pahul (baptism), usually administered on attaining puberty which initiates Sikhs formally into the Khalsa brotherhood. Five members - known as the panj piare - prepare the initiating drink called amrit (nectar) by mixing sweets in water with a dagger, while the initiates wait in the background.

The recurring number five is symbolic: the figure in Punjab has always known to have mystic powers stemming from the five rivers that flow through the region. "Where there are five, there am I," said Gobind Singh, the last guru. And the first disciples to be ordained as Khalsas also numbered five - the panj piare or five beloved ones.

Traditionally, Sikh religion and politics have been closely connected. Believing in a Sikh state is considered an article of faith. The cry of Raj Karega Khalsa - the Khalsa shall rule - is always taken up at the conclusion of any ceremony or service. It has provided some of the motivation for a separate state dominated by Sikhs, a motivation that appears to be growing as the cry, uttered regularly inside the Golden Temple, becomes louder and takes on a literal meaning.

- Sunil Sethi and Gobind Thukral in Amritsar

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